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Unstuck in time

Who I am...

My name is maht. I am a writer, graphic artist, singer, former actor and general vagabond with a mean sweet tooth and a penchant for rambling. A music fan, a lover of books and keeper of cats. Thanks for stopping by, and don't forget to say hello while you're here.

Saturday, February 03, 2007

Whatever the line was, it ruined me. Destroyed my chances at being normal. I had no clue what sugar plums were at the time, but I knew some kid was really fucking happy about them. And I knew they had sugar in them. The sugar factor sold me. Sugar was that elusive thing Mom always snatched from my hands and put onto a shelf just out of reach. (She often whispered about how I was getting “too chubby.”)

Aside from mouth-watering thoughts of sugar, the dancing part sold me as well. Dancing was the other thing in life that brought me great joy at age seven, and dancing was the other activity I was routinely denied. Because of my love for dancing my dad called me a “sissy” to my face and a “fairy” behind my back. Apparently I was supposed to spend my time on the baseball diamond, not begging for tap lessons or doing “the worm” across the living room floor.

Maybe I was a bit odd to begin with, even before the whole “Sugar plums” epiphany. But I still had half a chance. I knew not to dance in front of kids at school and I tried to control my chocolate cravings. I was being socialized for a regular life. But then that damn line sold me. It sold me, I was bought, however you want to put it. The day I paid attention to that line I solidified my fate as loner and freak.

Sugar plums sold me on what? One might ask. Imagining. Envisioning. Sitting around with my attention fully inside of myself, focused on the things that really mattered—sugary foods dancin’ and a’prancin’ around in my head. For once I realized I could ignore the cold hard world that denied me pleasure. “Sure Mom, Sure Dad, I’ll go catch frogs with the neighbor boys who tease me” became code for “I’ll sit on a log by myself with a shit-eating grin on my face because I’m immensely enjoying the theatre production of Thin Mints dancing in my head.” Thin mints literally dancing. Ballet, square-dancing, doing “The Hammer”—you name it, food did it in my head. I spent hours watching sweets twirl and leap, bebop and groove, and enjoyed every minute of it.

Needless to say, smiling for no apparent reason while ignoring my surroundings did not help me in the popularity department. Unfortunately, this practice haunts me to this day. I’m at work and my boss yells at me? Donuts pirouette so fast frosting flies off of them in all directions. I’m out to dinner with a (rather attractive) date and she begins talking about reality television? Slices of three-milk-cake do the Crocodile Rock before front flipping into my mouth.

People read my story and scoff at how pathetic I am? Frosted Gingerbread Men moonwalk off the table into chocolate pools, in which they synchronize swim.